What is the maximum size HDD can I fit into my 2010MBP?

Hi everyone!

First of all, I know that my mid 2010 15" Macbook Pro takes a 2.5" upto 9.5mm drive (12mm also fits but not reccomnded) and my SATA connector speed is 3GB/s and supports 6GB/s which are backwards compatible.

And I know this question has been asked so many times before but they are outdated now and new HDD models hit the market since then.

So the question is, will my MBP handle a 1TB HDD in main bay and another 1TB (or less) in optibay?

Some people say that the max is 1TB total, others say it's 4TB. Also heard that optibay max is 750GB.

Which one is true you guys? I've never popped my MBP open befor so I don't want to fall into the abyss doing so.

Note: I've seen this webpage but not quite sure if its relative or not.

2 Answers

Yes, the Apple tech note does offer you the limits of what the OS can handle which is way larger that anything you can buy today or would likely need. I don't know of many businesses or even governments needing 8 exabytes EB of storage :-}

OK, what can you do here...

First you do have a slight error in what your system can handle. You can only use a drive that can run at SATA II (3.0 Gb/s). While there are drives that can automatically adjust some don't. So make sure your choice is able to run at SATA II speed. I would recommend going with a SSHD unit vs a straight HD. Seagate makes a nice one which we have quite a few in service.

As to putting a second drive I place of the optical drive you do need to be careful here as the optical drive port does not offer crash protection unlike the HD port. You will need to get a drive which has it internally. That will limit your choices.

I think a 2TB drive should be large enough by its self. Remember here the second drives load will drain the battery sorting your run time.

8EB would make me feel better :-) because at the moment I have less than 4GB free space and can't updgrade to yosemite/fully backup my devices/work decently in photoshop...

I'm not comfortable with Seagate, and I need space more than speed. I'm looking at HGST at the moment. My current 320GB HDD is Hitachi, it's been with me since the beginning.

About the crash protection issue, this is oddly the first time I've heard of it.

I visited many websites and tutorials, and saw some videos about the proccess and what I should know before proceeding and none of these websites mentioned it! Could you be more specific about it? Or there is nothing to be specific about?

2TB of total storage would be plenty enough. I'm not worried about run time since I'm mostly around a power source and never leave without my charger.

Just to put you mind at rest about Seagate: We have over 300 2.5" SSHD's in service right now and we have not had any issues. All drive makers have had drive failures no one vendor is better than the other today.

OK, whats crash protection. In desktops this is not a big deal but in laptops it is. The problem here is just like phonographs (you do remember what they are, or am I showing my age ;-} ) HD's are very similar just instead of a needle scratching the disk its the read/write heads when you hit the player (HD). Crash protection senses the movement before it becomes damaging and puts the heads off the disk platters so the bump doesn't damage the heads or disk.

Apple was the innovator of this! They intact hold the patent! There solution is based on the logic board. Some drive vendors bought the rights to use the technology or created something similar.

Fair enough! I'll compare Seagate SSHDs and HGST HDDs with my needs. I don't remember phonographs, I "know of them" thanks to the inernet :D So if a drivers max operating shock is 350 Gs that means it's crash protected enough to be in the optibay? Also, some drives do not honestly state that they are backwards comatible with SATA II is there a way to make sure of that other than googling it?

The connector is the same across all the SATA specs (SATA I, SATA II & SATA III). It's only the I/O data rate (speed) thats different. You need to match the systems SATA I/O data rate when replacing the HD. While some drives can throttle down to SATA I and/or SATA II, you need to make sure the drive you get can. Sometimes (older drives) they offered a jumper to run at SATA I. Most of todays drives are fixed at SATA III with no means to alter. As it turns out the Seagate SSHD drive does auto-sense the SATA speed and matches the HD's port data rate. As into using two SSHD's sure that should work (haven't tried it my self). Our systems use only the 1TB drive (1) and we use an external encrypted drives for our clients data.

One more question, ahem. Is it okay to clone my current drive into the new SSHD using Carbon Copy Cloner and will it be completely functioning and ready to use hassle free? I heard that some cloning programes don't work well with SSD and it's better to perform a clean install of the os. So what's the case with SSHD?

Set up fusion drive ssd in hd slot and hd in DVDs slot ( with adapter) it will give you best of both worlds. All sshd offer is a larger cache for writing to disk the fusion drive puts smaller most used filed on ssd and larger less used files on hd if have 10. 8.4 or later the disk utility will set up automatically for you if you want and do all the hard work. I personally use 128gb ssd for os then install 512 ssd in dvd drive for best speed and storage. As lond @%^ hd/sad fit into bays should be fine at any size osx is awesome at figuring out the hard stuff for you

Thanks! I mentioned earlier that I need (lots of) space more than speed. I'm used to working slow and it's not a big problem for me. I'm not looking at SSDs at all but the Hybrid seemed more appropriate than the HDD since I'm taking the risk of getting into my MBPs guts for the first time. Of course a fusion drive would be nice -in my dreams- because I'm sticking with my 2010 MBP until I graduate from college. Maybe. AND when I get a new device I'm planning to take my old drives with me to use them as externals until they crash and die. And from what I've heard, theres no such product as a fusion drive, it's a system which is not supported by my laptop.

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